Category: Wings of Change Blog

  • REFUSE ILLEGAL ORDERS, by Susu Jeffrey

    REFUSE ILLEGAL ORDERS, by Susu Jeffrey

    It’s the law, it’s your oath, it’s your duty. You can, you must refuse illegal orders.

    They say empires last about 250 years so it’s time for the United States of America to retire from assumed global democratic leadership, or re-up.

    It is difficult to believe that out of more than 150 U.S. “manned” aircraft not one reported crew member failed to refuse to fly the illegal mission to bomb Venezuela and kidnap its president in January 2026. An unlawful order is one that violates human rights including harming civilians (not to mention the land). The Geneva Convention is a part of every service member’s education. One hundred civilian and military deaths have so far been reported since the U.S. military invasion of Venezuela.

    In addition to violating international human rights President Trump’s ordered incursion into Venezuela violates the Constitution because only Congress can declare war. The president failed to inform Congress before sending-in American troops — an impeachable offense. Furthermore he never requested an AUMF, authorization to use military force against a nation not attacking the U.S. The president claimed fentanyl is killing Americans however fentanyl is imported from Mexico in Central America, not from Venezuela in South America.

    Perhaps former geography instructor and former vice-presidential candidate, Tim Walz, Governor of Minnesota could have clarified the China-Mexico-fentanyl (not cocoaine) drug connection for Mr. Trump. The president just sent 2,100 federal ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents into Minneapolis on “Operation Metro Surge” where one Latin American man was arrested on January  6 and one white neighborhood woman was shot dead on January 7.

    Confusion about the legality of war, what drug is what and where and how a drug kills Americans who actually buy, use and are victims of drugs, adds to the muddy responsibility and consequences of officials being ordered to do something illegal, or simply acting illegally because they are poorly trained and pissed off.

    It’s the law, it’s your oath, it’s your duty. You can, you must refuse illegal orders.

    Six Democratic congressmen and women, all U.S. veterans, released a video in November 2025 to educate military and intelligence officers about illegal airstrike orders on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific seas.

    Sen. Mark Kelly, 61, of Arizona, former Navy pilot and U.S. astronaut, married to former congresswoman Gabby Giffords who was shot in the head in an assassination attempt in 2011, is the most well-known of the six.

    Sen. Elissa Slotkin, 50, of Michigan, former CIA analyst and Department of Defense international security expert was inspired to run for a House seat in 2019 when she saw her opponent smiling at a White House celebration over the repeal of the Obama Affordable Care Act. After two terms as a Representative Slotkin won her Senate seat in 2025. She is remembered for her response to Trump’s State of the Union address when she said Ronald Reagan would be “rolling in his grave” over the American president’s cozying up to Putin. Slotkin assesses America’s greatest security threat as the decline of the middle class.

    Two Pennsylvania House members and military veterans spoke on the Refuse Illegal Orders video. President Trump  called all six speakers traitors who should be charged with sedition, punishable by death and hanged.

    Chrissy Houlahan, 59, represents part of the Philadelphia area. She is an engineer and former Air Force officer who grew up as a Navy brat and was first elected to Congress in 2019. Houlahan, on the Armed Services and Defense Intelligence committees, lobbies for better military technology, trans military rights and same sex marriage in addition to single payer healthcare and negotiated drug prices. She opposed President Biden’s troop withdrawal in Syria, is concerned about Netanyahu’s war in Palestine and wanted to give fighter jets to Ukraine.

    Chris Deluzio, 42, from Pittsburgh, went to the U.S. Naval Academy and Georgetown Law. He served in the Iraq War and is in his second House term. Deluzio is a member of the Labor and Progressive caucuses, focusing on suppression of voters’ rights, labor union rights and veterans affairs.

    Maggie Goodlander, 40, of New Hampshire, is a first term congresswoman serving on the Armed Services Committee. With a law degree from Yale she worked in Naval intelligence on terrorism for over a decade and advised the House Judiciary Committee during the first Trump impeachment. She leads the No Unauthorized War with Venezuela move to prohibit any federal funds for military force unless Congress passes an AUMF.  In addition to working on congressional war powers she is active in abortion rights since experiencing  a horrible natural stillbirth in a hotel bathtub while awaiting a medical procedure. Goodlander, from a prominent political family, is married to Jake Sulllivan who was President Biden’s National Security Advisor.

    Jason Crow, 46, is in his third term representing the eastern Denver, Colorado area. He was an Army ranger working in counter insurgency with three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan earning a bronze star. After military service he went into law and politics. Crow is on the House Foreign Affairs and Intelligence committees. He has been criticized for accepting campaign donations from a company that does business with Israeli Defense Forces but lately called for pressure on Netanyahu over humanitarian violations in Gaza. Crow urged President Biden to send fighter jets to Ukraine noting that  “Russia is not our friend” and we have 60,000 American troops in harm’s way in Europe. He sees Ukraine as an American security issue rather than a political issue.

    So it’s a birthday year in the U.S. with affordability the top domestic concern but Venezuela and whether to buy or conquer Greenland on the president’s menu. Sounds like the two parties are not listening to each other.

    Susu Jeffrey is a poet and political activist living in Minneapolis. Her father, Harry Jeffrey (R-Ohio), was co-author of the “G.I. Bill of Rights” in the House of Representatives in 1944.



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  • Snippets: “The E’s have it” . . . and more

    Snippets: “The E’s have it” . . . and more

    The E’s have it:

    Epstein (transparency)

    Enbridge/oil pipeline builder (Line 5/also Line 3)

    Elbit Systems/Israeli defense firm (Thunberg London arrest)

    Ethnic Cleansing/Humanitarian Disaster (Sudan/Gaza)

    E-ICE (ICE crimes are documented everywhere; their purpose and violence are inexcusable)

    Senator Wyden on the new trillion dollar defense bill

    Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who voted no on the defense spending bill, said, “I cannot support a bill that increases military spending by tens of billions of dollars and fails to include guardrails against Donald Trump and Hegseth’s authoritarian abuses.”

    From Hannah Arendt

    “The ‘apocalyptic’ chess game between the superpowers that is, between those that move on the highest plane of our civilization, is being played according to the rule ‘if either “wins” it is the end of both’; it is a game that bears no resemblance to whatever war games preceded it. Its ‘rational’ goal is deterrence, not victory, and the arms race, no longer a preparation for war, can now be justified only on the grounds that more and more deterrence is the best guarantee of peace. To the question how shall we ever be able to extricate ourselves from the obvious insanity of this position, there is no answer.”
    Hannah Arendt, On Violence

    There are now organizations like ICAN that before Trump and his cartel took over have taken huge steps internationally to ban nuclear weapons. But the Trumpites see only the military as a solution, when in reality it is the greatest threat to world peace. ICAN built the following UN treaty:

    The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)

    The TPNW was adopted at the United Nations by a majority of nations in July 2017 and entered into force on January 22, 2021. It is the first globally applicable treaty to categorically prohibit nuclear weapons and provides a framework for their verifiable and irreversible elimination. 

    Trump has removed the US from many international arms treaties just as he has removed US participation in prevention of climate change at the recent COP international UN conference about climate change and continued to promote the greatest polluter in the world, CO2, caused by fossil fuel that also drives the military with over 1000 military bases worldwide.


    • What new authoriarian or fascist tripe will be thrown at us by Trump and his administration? As the poet William Blake once said: “Enough! Or too much.” My AI interprets that as: “the power of imagination and challenging conventional morality.” Robert Reich in his most recent Coffee Klatch on Saturday, 12/27/2025 explores the idea that Trump’s excesses and authoritarian dictates have exposed the conventional morality we have been living under, accepting the status quo around racism, women’s oppression and rights, healthcare, housing, and other oppressive systems for so many Americans.

    • As the population if the United States has become more diverse and has many more shades of color, the white supremacists have lost their hold while at the same time they are losing their unilateral hemogeny in the world (collapse of empire) and are trying desperately to hold on.

    • Trump and his cartel think the solution is a superior military that has put us on the edge of more war, especially in Latin America and particularly Venezuela which has two strikes against it. One, it is a socialist country and therefore the opposite of capitalism’s greed in its idiology. Second, and not without significance even though the Trump administration denies it, Venezuela has the greatest reserve of oil in the world. Much of that oil is offshore, but still belongs to Venezuela. 

    • Why is the oil so important? It sustains the military industrial complex and is essential for that hyper-military system that has those 1000 or so military bases worldwide. Those jets and other oil uses from US military bases alone are the greatest CO2 (fossil fuel) sources in the world. You say so what? But if you understand the climate crisis you know that they are destroying the planet with their use of fossil fuel. Yet Trump encourages fracking and major use of fossil fuels and supports the corporations that use them. That, of course, is in direct conflict with those of us who want to save the planet. 

    • The gas and oil companies who economically control our government along with domination from other corporations, most especially including the weapons’ industry, which again is tied into the hyper-military. 

    • So how are all those corporations, internationally those multinational corporations and the financial groups that support them going to make money? They desperately cling to their old and destructive ways. But that creates jobs, they say. But statistics have proved that turning to a green basis for the economy can create just as many if not more jobs. That scares them. Instead of changing their ways because they might lose their power and their money, they continue on the road to destruction instead if using their time and money for new innovations that could help save the planet.

    • US industry has lost its innovative edge. Daily I see that this or that country worldwide has created a new tool to deal with the climate crisis, and China is ahead of the US in the war against climate change. Instead the US is stagnated, caught in a MEGA web that serves no one except the rich while convincing too many Americans who are Trump supporters that there is no genocide in Palestine. Recent examples I have seen online include the Netherlands inventing a tubing they put in the ocean that collects plastic that they then process the plastic to prevent pollution. Other nations have built large areas of solar panels on flat land dedicated to solar power. In Morocco they have developed an inexpensive small solar panel that can be placed on their balconies. There are many more examples but you will not find them described in the mainstream corporate media. 

     “In the end there is no democracy without informed citizens, no justice without a language critical of injustice, and no change without a broad-based movement of collective resistance.”

    —Henry Giroux



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  • The Money They Stole (from Venezuela): a song about US economic warfare, by Ben Grosscup

    The Money They Stole (from Venezuela): a song about US economic warfare, by Ben Grosscup

    This song confronts the economic warfare, stolen resources, and military threats facing Venezuela from US imperialism. It traces a line from historic extraction to today’s financial blockade—and affirms the right of a sovereign people to resist.

    📌 WHY THIS SONG NOW? As military threats against Venezuela escalate, this song focuses on the less visible front: the economic war. For years, Venezuelan assets—from CITGO to gold reserves—have been frozen or seized by U.S. and European banks under the banner of “sanctions.” This is a song about that theft.
    📢 USE THIS SONG This track is free to use at rallies, webinars, teach-ins, or on social media to raise awareness about US sanctions. Credit the artists and link back to this video. #TheMoneyTheyStole #Venezuela #EconomicWarfare #SanctionsKill #NoWarOnVenezuela #ProtestMusic #Solidarity #FinancialBlockade #CITGO #DavidRovics #BenGrosscup #ChetGardiner 🎶
    MORE FROM BEN GROSSCUP Follow & explore more music: https://linktr.ee/BenGrosscup

    CREDITS • Music & Lyrics: Ben Grosscup • Bass, Banjo & Studio Production: Chet Gardiner (http://chetgardiner.com/) • Video Production: Ben Grosscup, with support from Chet Gardiner • Lyrical inspiration: Based on the chorus and structure of David Rovics’ “Terrorizing Venezuela.” Read the original here: https://davidrovics.substack.com/p/te… 🔗


    RELATED

    Democracy Now!  U.S. Strikes Against Venezuela: Trump “Wants the Oil” as Grassroots Resist “Economic Asphyxiation”  December 31, 2025

    As the Trump administration escalates its military campaign against Venezuela, [DN!] speaks to Venezuelan journalist Andreína Chávez about the latest developments.

    Amy Goodman:

    Andreína Chávez, speaking to us from Caracas. We want to thank you for being with us, and encourage people to read your article at Drop Site News.  The article, “’War of the entire people’: Venezuela’s Grassroots Rise to Resist Trump’s Naval Blockade.”



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    Wings invites you to subscribe.
    Join us on Wings of Change

    In this critical time hearing voices of truth is all the more important although censorship and attacks on truth-tellers are common. Support WingsofChange.me as we bring you important articles and journalism beyond the mainstream corporate media on the Wings of Change website and Rise Up Times on social media  Access is always free, but if you would like to help:
    A donation of $25 or whatever you can donate will bring you articles and opinions from independent websites, writers, and journalists as well as a blog with the opinions and creative contributions by myself and others

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  • Sue Ann Martinson, New Year Musings: “Enough! or Too Much”

    Sue Ann Martinson, New Year Musings: “Enough! or Too Much”

    Sometimes when I am writing a phrase from my literary background pops into my mind; I am not always sure why. This time it was William Blake’s “Enough! or Too much” from his “Proverbs of Hell” in his book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

    New Year Musings: “Enough! or Too Much”
    By Sue Ann Martinson

    I had been listening to comments from Robert Reich on the Coffee Klatch program on Saturdays that he does with cohost Heather Lofthouse. Reich is talking about the excesses in Trump’s authoritarian edicts and his behavior, the hate rants and racism, his narcissistic behavior as he wants his name on everything from the Kennedy Center to peace plans that never seem to work out, to his condemnation of anyone who disagrees with him or challenges him and what he says. He has, in effect, lost touch with reality and has taken Congress and the Supreme Court with him. Reich’s point is exactly what this proverb, the last of the Proverbs of Hell, represents: You Never Know What is Enough Unless You Know What is More than Enough.” Trump’s rantings and ravings are certainly more than Enough (or Too much), as are his inhumane and cruel actions.

    Reich sees this beginning of a sea change as positive, a move toward sanity by the American people as they recognize Trump’s excesses in word and deed.

    Tony Trigilio, a professor at Columbia College Chicago, in an article entitled ”Poetic Influence: William Blake: You Never Know What is Enough Unless You Know What is More than Enough,” explains what this final proverb means for writers.***

    But like all Blake’s proverbs the application can be broader than the literary sphere: It applies also to Trump’s excesses revealed in their naked truth, which is what Reich understands and sees as a catalyst as cracks begin to show between the GOP Congress and Trump. More and more people also are signing on to oppose him, as reflected in the polls that rate him and his presidency at very low levels as increasing millions also join in the No King demonstrations.

    In Minnesota, especially Minneapolis, Trump’s slurs about the Somali people and attacks on Representative Ilhan Omar have activated an already Woke community to take continued action — in what Roger Waters calls “steadfast perseverance” — by many activists, including religious groups as well as those who take to the streets to confront ICE regularly. Governor Walz has spoken out, as has the mayor of Minneapols Jacob Frye. Attorney General Keith Ellison has joined with Attorney Generals from other states as well in lawsuits. The Minneapolis City Council has declared Minneapolis a Sanctuary City.

    Nor have we forgotten the genocide Gaza/Palestine as those actions and protests and educational programs continue as well.

    Last, but certainly not least, 15,000 people marched down Lake Street in the center of the city on the cold and windy day of December 20, 2025 in protest of ICE.

    ADDENDUM

    Other Work by William Blake

    Wm. Blake is known for his satirical poetry and the art he created that often accompanied it. An “activist,” he was once tried for sedition for an “anti-monarchy” statement but was acquitted. His activism is really through his writings. Blake’s most accessible and popular work is Songs of Innocence and Experience. Simply written, and illustrated by Blake, the poems reflect the warts on the face of English society and culture.


    ***Writers will want to read the following analysis by Tony Trigilio of the proverb under discussion, “Enough! or Too much,” for its insight into the writing process.

    Like most writers, my creative process is rarely linear. It requires recursive movement between free-form generative writing and disciplined self-editing. This dance between drafting and revision can be a delicate one. If I linger too long in the generative stage of the process, I can find myself tangled in a free-associative clump of language with no shape or coherence. At the same time, if I linger too long in revision, I can easily get stuck, Prufrock-like, in a self-critical loop of “decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”

    This movement back and forth between drafting and revision would be far more difficult if not for one of William Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell,” from his book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell:

    “You never know what is enough,” Blake writes, “unless you know what is more than enough.”



    Wings of Change is entirely reader supported.
    Wings invites you to subscribe.
    Join us on Wings of Change

    In this critical time hearing voices of truth is all the more important although censorship and attacks on truth-tellers are common. Support WingsofChange.me as we bring you important articles and journalism beyond the mainstream corporate media on the Wings of Change website and Rise Up Times on social media  Access is always free, but if you would like to help:
    A donation of $25 or whatever you can donate will bring you articles and opinions from independent websites, writers, and journalists as well as a blog with the opinions and creative contributions by myself and others

    Sue Ann Martinson, Editor Wings of Change

  • Bob Dylan: License to Kill

    Bob Dylan: License to Kill

    Now, there’s a woman on my block
    She just sit there as the night grows still

    She say who gonna take away his license to kill?

    License to Kill

    Written by: Bob Dylan
    Man thinks ’cause he rules the earth he can do with it as he please
    And if things don’t change soon, he will
    Oh, man has invented his doom
    First step was touching the moon
    Now, there’s a woman on my block
    She just sit there as the night grows still
    She say who gonna take away his license to kill?
    Now, they take him and they teach him and they groom him for life
    And they set him on a path where he’s bound to get ill
    Then they bury him with stars
    Sell his body like they do used cars
    Now, there’s a woman on my block
    She just sit there facin’ the hill
    She say who gonna take away his license to kill?
    Now, he’s hell-bent for destruction, he’s afraid and confused
    And his brain has been mismanaged with great skill
    All he believes are his eyes
    And his eyes, they just tell him lies
    But there’s a woman on my block
    Sitting there in a cold chill
    She say who gonna take away his license to kill?
    Ya may be a noisemaker, spirit maker
    Heartbreaker, backbreaker
    Leave no stone unturned
    May be an actor in a plot
    That might be all that you got
    ’Til your error you clearly learn
    Now he worships at an altar of a stagnant pool
    And when he sees his reflection, he’s fulfilled
    Oh, man is opposed to fair play
    He wants it all and he wants it his way

    Now, there’s a woman on my block
    She just sit there as the night grows still
    She say who gonna take away his license to kill?

    Copyright © 1983 by Special Rider Music



    Rise Up Times is entirely reader supported.

    In this critical time in hearing the voices of truth is all the more important although censorship and attacks on truth-tellers are common. Support WingsofChange.me as we bring you important articles and journalism beyond the mainstream corporate media on the Wings of Change website and Rise Up Times on social media  Access is alway free, but if you would like to help:
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  • Highlights from Caitlin Johnstone and Democracy Now!

    Highlights from Caitlin Johnstone and Democracy Now!

    The most common misconception about the free press of the western world is that it exists.

    By Caitlin Johnstone, December 1, 2025

    Every fu**ing time. The mass media do this every fu**ing time the US empire gets war-horny. And the Murdoch press are always the most egregious offenders.

    Reminds me of an old tweet by a man named Malcolm Price:

    “I remember in the run-up to the Iraq War a friend I had known all my life suddenly said to me, ‘We must do something about this monster in Iraq.’ I said, ‘When did you first think that?’ He answered honestly, ‘A month ago’.”

    Price’s friend had been swept up in the imperial war propaganda campaign that had recently begun, just like countless millions of others. Month after month after month western consciousness was hammered with false narratives about weapons of mass destruction, forced associations of Saddam Hussein with 9/11, and stories about how much better things will be for the people of Iraq once that evil tyrant is gone.

    Normally it never would have occurred to the average westerner that a country on the other side of the planet should be invaded and its leader replaced with a puppet regime. That’s not the sort of thing that would have organically entered someone’s mind. It needed to be placed there.

    So it was.

    The most common misconception about the free press of the western world is that it exists. All the west’s most influential and far-reaching news media publications are here not to report factual stories about current events, but to manufacture consent for the pre-existing agendas of the US-centralized western empire.

    They report many true things, to be sure, and if you acquire some media literacy you can actually learn how to glean a lot of useful information from the imperial press without losing your mind to the spin machine. But reporting true things is not their purpose. Their purpose is to manipulate public psychology at mass scale for the benefit of the empire they serve.

    This doesn’t happen through some kind of centralized Ministry of Truth where sinister social engineers secretly conspire to deceive people. It happens because all mainstream press is controlled either by plutocrats or by western governments in the form of state broadcasters like the BBC, both of which have a vested interest in maintaining the imperial status quo. They control who the executives and lead editors of these outlets are, and those leaders shape the hiring and editing processes of the publication or broadcaster. Reporters come to understand that there are certain lines they need to color within if they want to get articles published and continue advancing their careers, so they either learn to toe the imperial line or they disappear from the mass media industry.

    If people had a clear understanding of everything that’s really going on in our world, they would tear the empire apart brick by brick. If they could truly see how much evil is being done in their name and really wrap their minds around it, and if they could understand how much wealth the plutocrats are getting out of the imperial status quo compared to how little they themselves benefit from it, there would be immediate revolution. So the oligarchs and empire managers shore up narrative control in the form of media ownership, think tanks, Silicon Valley algorithm manipulation, imperial information ops like Wikipedia, and now increasingly through billionaire-owned AI chatbots to ensure that this never happens.

    The entire empire is built on a foundation of lies. The whole power structure is held together by nonstop manipulation of the way westerners think, speak, act, shop, work, and vote. If truth ever finds a way to get a word in edgewise, the entire thing would collapse.

    We know this is true because the oligarchs and empire managers pour so much wealth and energy into manipulating our minds. They’re not doing this for fun, they’re doing it because they need to. If they didn’t need to, it wouldn’t be happening.

    So what they are doing is intensely creepy and destructive, but it’s also empowering, because it shows us right where their weak spot is. They’re pouring all this energy into controlling the dominant narrative because that’s the weakest point in the armor of the imperial machine.

    What we need, then, is a grassroots effort to help truth get a word in. Help people understand that they’ve been propagandized and deceived about the world by western media and by their power-serving education systems every day of their lives, because propaganda only works if you don’t know it’s happening to you. Sow distrust in the imperial media and institutions. Open people’s eyes to the fact that they’re being lied to, and help them learn to see the truth. Anywhere the empire is sowing lies and distortions — whether that’s in Venezuela or Gaza or somewhere else — use that opportunity to help more people unplug their minds from the propaganda matrix.

    A better world is possible. The first step in moving toward it is snapping people out of the propaganda-induced coma which dupes them into settling for this dystopian nightmare instead.

    DEMOCRACY NOW! December 3, 2025

    Today’s DN! Updates the ceasefire in Gaza that isn’t as Israel continues its deadly genocide, explaining about the attacks by groups of Israeli’s who are then just observed or are joined by Israeli military. These raids in the West Bank and Gazans are often by Israeli settlers who stole their homes and olive groves in thr first place. They also cover the exiting of Gazans from Palestine and whether or not they have the right to­­ return.

    Amy and Juan then interview Ralph Nader who has been a watchdog of the Democratic Party and of Congress for 60-odd years. To cut to the chase he recommends Impeachment as the most effective way to render Trump’s dictatorship, which is blatantly unconstitutional as seen in so   many of his actions.  Another of Nader’s points is that America is not as divided on the issues as it seems. The consistent “blame the Democrats” knee-jerk reaction of Trump is designed to divide the American people because to divide them serves his propagandized platform and also a greedy mainstream corporate media they loves all conflict.

    Nader discusses his new book Civic Self-Respect and then stays around to comment on the next segment about a new film that documents the WTO demonstrations in Seattle in 1999. This was a nonviolent demonstration of at least 40,000 people from around the county. Larry Weiss, representing local labor groups, called a meeting (I was there) explaining the demonstration against corporate power and recruiting people to attend. And a contingency of Minnesotans did go to Seattle.

    Another segment focused on Minneapolis/St. Paul and the attack by racist bully Trump on sending ICE against the large Somali population. Most of the Somali’s are here legally. Besides being small business and shop owners, many of the men are truck and taxi drivers. They are contributing to the economy. I see them often in various places, both men and women. I seriously question Trump’s statement that 88% are on welfare. We know he lies all the time to convince people to follow his cruel and barbarian policies.

    Here the Nader interview:

    For more information view on video (available on YouTube) or listen to the podcast of Dec. 3, 2025 of Democracy Now!



    In this critical time in hearing the voices of truth is all the more important although censorship and attacks on truth-tellers are common. Support WingsofChange.me as we bring you important articles and journalism beyond the mainstream corporate media on the Wings of Change website and Rise Up Times on social media  Access is alway free, but if you would like to help:
    A donation of $25 or whatever you can donate will bring you articles and opinions from independent websites, writers, and journalists as well as a blog with the opinions and creative contributions by myself and others

    Rise Up Times is entirely reader supported.

    Sue Ann Martinson, Editor Wings of Change

  • Roger Waters This is Not a Drill Live From Prague – The Movie

    Roger Waters This is Not a Drill Live From Prague – The Movie

    Roger Waters This is Not a Drill Live From Prague – The Movie
    Saturday, November 15, 2025, 1:00 pm- 3:45 pm
    4:00 pm: Roger Waters LIVE with Q and A: He will join us live via Zoom after the screening for a Q and A session.

    Holy Trinity Church: 2730 E. 31st Street Minneapolis MN 55406. Enter on East side of the building. The parking lot entrance off Lake Street is between 28th and 29th Avenues  – next to the “Trinity on Lake” building.


    Cosponsored by Veterans for Peace
    Chapter 27 Minneapolis

    This is Not a Drill: Live From Prague is a 2023 concert film by Pink Floyd cofounder Roger Waters, featuring a live performance by Roger and the band. The film combines songs from his 60-year career with Pink Floyd and his solo work, and is described as a stunning “cinematic extravaganza” with political commentary that includes elaborate staging and visual effects.

    We refuse to accept a fascist America.The show is an indictment of the militarism, perpetual war, imperialism, settler colonialism, and the “corporate dystopia” we all struggle to survive and a call to action to love, protect and share our precious and precarious planet home.

    This is Not A Drill, with a message of love, hope and unity, is “dedicated to brothers and sisters all over the world who are engaged in the existential battle for the soul of humanity.”

    Roger is known worldwide for not only his music, but his work for justice and peace. In 2025 he won the Artistic War Abolisher of 2025 Award from World Beyond War for his “incredibly powerful combination of songwriting, singing, speaking and performing against the horrors of war,” in the words of David Swanson, World Beyond War executive director.

    Directors: Roger Waters, Sean Evans / Distributed by Trafalgar, Released 2025 / 2 h 24 m

    Film cosponsors are Women Against Military Madness and Veterans For Peace Chapter 27, with thanks to Holy Trinity Church for their support.

    _______________________________________

  • Robert Reich on the Government Shutdown and Ralph Nader on the Democratic Party with Chris Hedges

    Robert Reich on the Government Shutdown and Ralph Nader on the Democratic Party with Chris Hedges

    Reich explains the stakes and how we got there. . . Nader decries the impotence of the Democrats and why. . .

    Why This Is Not a Normal Government Shutdown

     

    Why the Democrats WON’T Save Us…


    In this critical time in hearing the voices of truth is all the more important although censorship and attacks on truth-tellers are common. Support WingsofChange.me as we bring you important articles and journalism beyond the mainstream corporate media on the Wings of Change website and Rise Up Times on social media  Access is alway free, but if you would like to help:
    A donation of $25 or whatever you can donate will bring you articles and opinions from independent websites, writers, and journalists as well as a blog with the opinions and creative contributions by myself and others

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  • Glenn Greenwald Reacts to Netanyahu’s UN Speech

    Glenn Greenwald Reacts to Netanyahu’s UN Speech

    Netanyahu speaks to an empty UN chamber… 

    By Glenn Greenwald /  ScheerPost / September 28, 2025

    Glenn Greenwald is a journalist, constitutional lawyer, and author of four New York Times best-selling books on politics and law. He broke the Snowden leaks in 2013. Greenwald currently hosts a political commentary show for Rumble called “System Update.”  Author Site

    RELATED 

    Netanyahu addresses empty UN chamber



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  • The Cancer Plague: Nuclear Power and Waste, by Susu Jeffrey

    The Cancer Plague: Nuclear Power and Waste, by Susu Jeffrey

    The Cancer Plague: Nuclear Power and Waste / Original to Wings of Change
    By Susu Jeffrey / August 18, 2025

    “Sometimes before I give a speech, I ask the audience to stand up if they or someone in their family has had cancer,” says John LaForge of Nukewatch. “Eighty percent of the audience gets up.”

    The Monticello nuclear power reactor is on the Mississippi River about 35-miles northwest of Minneapolis. Xcel’s twin Prairie Island reactors, plus about 50 giant dry casks storing waste reactor fuel, are all in the floodplain of the Mississippi. This waste is sited 44 to 51 miles southeast of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

    There are no plans to move the waste off-island because there is no alternative destination. In fact, 34 more concrete encased steel casks are planned. There is no national hot radioactive waste repository. Think of these waste container sites as permanent radioactive waste dumps.

    The greater Twin Cities’ 3.7 million people are in the nuclear “shadow” (within 50 miles) of all three nukes. The Mississippi River serves 20 million people with drinking water, way beyond the Minnesota state population of 5.7 million. Minnesota’s aging nukes are a national threat. For approximately the next six generations, radioactive tritium will be a part of the drinking water wherever those molecules wander.

    The Monticello nuke was licensed in 1970 for 40 years, and went online in 1971, a year it had two radioactive cesium spills. In 2010, the license was renewed for another 20 years until 2030. Xcel Energy has even been granted an extension for another 20 years until 2050. It is a corporate financial security move not yet approved by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission which holds the final consent. Paperwork is one thing, pipes are another.

    In November 2022, a 50-year-old underground pipe leaked 829,000 gallons of tritium-contaminated wastewater that reached the Mississippi River, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Xcel failed to make public the radioactive spill for four months. After a May 15, 2024 public hearing in Monticello where citizens testified “We don’t trust you. You lie,” an NRC executive “clarified” Xcel’s “miscommunication.”

    Senior Environmental Project Manager, Stephen J. Koenick admitted some tritium had been measured in the Mississippi. Tritium bonds with water and cannot be separated out. Water obeys gravity running downhill, in the case of Monticello, from the reactor to the Mississippi. The runaway tritium will persist in the environment for ten half-lives or about 123 years.

    SWANS AT MONTICELLO SWIM IN POISONED WATER

    The trumpeter swan gets its name from its loud sonorous call — and the spot on the Mississippi River near the Monticello nuclear power plant is often filled with them in winter. Tim Post | MPR News file*

    No telling where Xcel’s radioactive molecules will land. Men have a one in two chance of being diagnosed with cancer during their lifetimes; for women the chance is one in three (National Cancer Institute, 2/9/2022). There is tremendous popular, fear-driven support for the oncology industry.

    The good news is that while cancer numbers are up so is the cancer survival rate. However, at nuke weapons, nuke reactors, and the virtually forever waste sites, “accidents” happen along with on-going radioactive decay. Radioactivity cannot be contained. When I was a newspaper reporter in Brevard County, Florida, where Cape Canaveral is located, I learned that nuclear waste cannot be rocketed off into space because it’s too hot, too heavy, and the rockets too faulty.

    Nuclear Safety Regulations Changing

    Among Pres. Trump’s cost-cutting moves is a weakening of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s exposure standards. Staff would be cut and regulations “revised” virtually cutting off the commission’s independent status. The Monticello nuke was licensed for 40 years and was rubber stamped to work for 80. Octogenarian nukes are considered “safe enough” now by the nuclear/government consortium.

    Piecemeal fix-it parts for geriatric machinery or people are a lucrative business. Locating a leaking tritium pipe underground, between buildings, removing and replacing it is a non-negotiable emergency at nuclear reactors with miles and miles of piping. Upkeep expenses figure in utility rate hikes.

    Joseph Mangano and Ernest Sternglass did a study of eight downwind U.S.  communities in the two years after a nuclear reactor closure. A remarkable 17.4 percent drop in infant mortality was found. “We finally have peer-reviewed accurate data attaching nuclear power reactors to death and injury in the host communities,” New York State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky said of the 2002 report in the Archives of Environmental Health.

    Monopoly capitalism or public service?

    Clearly the Monticello reactor was designed to make money. In November 2024, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison wrote that Xcel has “aggressively” pursued multi-year rate hikes while earning large profits. In 2024 Xcel reported $1.94-billion net earnings, a profit margin up 14% from 2023.

    According to Xcel propaganda, the nuke is “the biggest employer and largest local taxpayer” in Monticello, MN, and generates an estimated $550 million in economic activity each year in the region. And like profits, cancer rates are up notably among people under 50 and rising faster among women than men the American Cancer Society reports.

    Repeatedly, the Xcel corporation wins its rate hike and re-licensing “asks.” These asks get rewritten and resubmitted until a “compromise” is reached. In 2025, residential customers will pay $5.39 more per month, down from the original ask of $9.89, according to Minnesota Public Radio, which also noted that greater increases are on the horizon for EVs and data center capital improvements.

    Cancer

    St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital advertises heavily with videos of big-eyed, bald children cancer patients. In a review of published studies of 136 nuclear reactor sites in the European Journal of Cancer Care in 2007, elevated leukemia disease rates in children were documented in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Spain, Japan, and Canada. This is not a new story.

    The danger of mental retardation of fetuses exposed in the womb was reported in The New York Times (page A1 on 12/20/1989). Tritium crosses the placenta. In addition to the health costs of breathing and ingesting exhausts from nuclear power reactors, there is the problem of what to do with and how to contain its long-lived waste. The nuclear profit god is a once and future terrorist.



    Please sign now: A petition calling for the closure of the Monticello nuclear reactor!  Here is the link:

    * The Trumpeter Swans have been a tourist attraction at the Monticello nuclear reactor plant in the past. With the discovering of the tritium poison leak they can no longer gather in the poisoned water.

    Susu Jeffrey is a poet and writer living in Minneapolis. She has opposed nuclear weapons/nuclear power since before her arrest at Seabrook, New Hampshire in 1977.



    In this critical time in our country hearing the voices of truth and engaging in honest discussion for critical issues is all the more important while censorship (and outright lies) along with attacks on truth-tellers are common. Support the WingsofChange.me website and Rise Up Times on social media as we to bring you important articles and journalism beyond the mainstream corporate media. Access is alway free, but if you would like to help:
    Wings of Change FeatherWhatever you are able donate will bring you articles and opinions from independent websites, writers, and journalists as well as a blog with the opinions and creative contributions.

    One place to begin is with reason and truth, and how fundamental they are to creating critically engaged citizens and communities. 

    —Henry A. Giroux